Someone please explain why this movie is supposed to be good. Please. I spent 8+ dollars on this, and I almost walked out 30 minutes in. You have to understand: I never do this. But I was seriously surrounded by hoards of laughing viewers and I had yet to even crack a smile. I'm not joking. What is going on? On Valentine's Day no less!
Ok, He's Just Not That Into You is one of those movies you're sort of supposed to tune out of an just enjoy. I can absolutely appreciate the beauty of Romantic Comedies as the Victorian Novels of our time -- we go in knowing it will end well and just stick around to float our way through the drama therein. I can handle this task, and was utterly prepared to embark on the journey, even knowing the premise was basically to tell women that they think too much. Even THEN, I was open minded and looking forward to this release.
Something has gone terribly wrong. For a movie that's supposed to be some sort of guru on relationships, I am seriously disappointed in the sage advice given, and the hideous examples made of the following character types: the hopeful dating woman, the empowered single woman, the gay anybody, the straight man, the bride-to-be, and even the rarely seen Wiccan wedding date. I didn't know it was legal to simplify and stereotype so many people in one movie.
All of the single women in this movie are completely enslaved by their singleness. They're either insecure and act like stupid waifs as a result, or they're desperate to find themselves through someone else's vision of them as "special" -- they are completely pathetic. The women in relationships simply want to get married. The single girl who doesn't want to get married ends up a lonely lounge singer, and the married woman who ends up single only does so because her husband blatantly lies and cheats on her. All of the gay characters are peripheral; they're slutty and flamboyant men who only exist to self-depricate and tell the straight characters when they need a cookie (literally). I could go on, but it makes me sad to even replay the scenes in my head.
What is this movie teaching us exactly? It is bad for women to act according to their emotional impulses. Also, it is bad for women to analyze their relationships, unless they are doing it to manipulate the situation in their favor. No man wants to get married. If he does, he's needy. Gay men are fun to laugh at. If there was supposed to be social commentary happening, I think I missed the commentary part. I stayed through the whole movie, and the biggest lesson I learned is that American Spirit cigarettes have an excellent advertising budget. Also, Ginnifer Goodwin has really gorgeous skin (*jealousy*), and I should do all my shopping at CVS and Home Depot. Most importantly, though there may be 500 reasons a guy is just not that "into" me, if I call it anything but "he's just not that into me" then I'm being a stupid girl, and I should be fixed into a smart girl. Except, in the process of getting fixed by whoever I'm "into," hopefully the guy I'm "into" will realize that, actually, he is "into" me -- mostly because he got the chance to fix me and thought I was stupid, but oh well at least I have a boyfriend now! Thank god now my life's complete and I can die happy. Oops - the only problem is that I'm just not that into this crap.
oh man, I will most definitely NOT be seeing this movie now - you have convinced me. Isn't it sad to know a NU alumn had a hand in this script? Sadness.
ReplyDeleteThe entire time I watched this movie I couldn't help but think about Sigmund Fraud. Just like the late (but not so) great psychologist, this movie seemed to spout "facts" at every turn, only to realize (either during the movie or later) that said "facts" were just crude, unsubstantiated generalizations that could in no way ever apply to even an overwhelming majority of people. That, and the fact that it just wasn't funny, made this movie a waste of my time and money. And since time is money, it was doubly painful on the wallet.
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